The best keyboard in the world
posted under category: General on January 29, 2008 by Nathan
I call myself a real hacker, so naturally I'm at my keyboard a lot. In mid-2007 I passed a budget approval through the family finance committee and began researching keyboards. I have a few important criteria that are all important. I'm not a really picky person, I can jam on a standard dell keyboard and do alright, I can type fine on strange and annoying keyboards just fine, and with practice, on a notebook, but we all know there's getting by, and then there's getting what you really wanted.
This is my list of must-haves for selecting a new keyboard:
Must be a full sized keyboard
Must connect via USB port (for speed and compatibility)
Must not be split for ergonomics
Must not have a malformed control navigation area (home, end, insert, delete, pgup pgdwn)
Must not have a malformed arrow navigation area (I hate you, MS natural keyboard)
Must have a numeric keypad, spaced out from the rest of the keyboard
Must be wired, both because I don't want to fiddle with batteries and for responsiveness
Must have multimedia control buttons, specifically volume control
Must not be a mouse/keyboard combo
Must cost less than $100
No generic brands
Extra gadgets, buttons, sliders and such are a plus
Logitech has exactly one choice that fits my criteria, the $99 G15 Gaming Keyboard. I like games, but I don't know if I'm that hardcore. Programmable keys and the LCD screen are nice.
Microsoft also has exactly one choice that fits my criteria, the $30 Digital Media Pro Keyboard. No screen, but many other strengths, and less than 1/3 the price of the Logitech choice.
NewEgg revealed some other choices from Saitek and Belkin, but both seemed to have compressed layouts and odd designs. Amazon showed basically nothing else.
So of the two choices it looks like I have, I chose the Microsoft Digital Media Pro Keyboard. $70 extra for a keyboard screen doesn't really sound like a great deal for what I do.
I've been using my Digital Media Pro Keyboard now for a few months and have been very happy with it. I highly recommend it to anyone who is looking.
Have you fallen in love with a keyboard? Share your obsession, write a comment.